Questions
What is a cafe racer?
A cafe racer is a stripped-back retro style with low clip-on bars, a solo seat and a lean, 1960s 'race to the cafe' look.
The style takes its name from the transport cafes dotted along 1960s British trunk roads, where riders gathered between runs. A cafe racer strips away anything that adds weight or drag: high bars are swapped for low clip-ons that bolt to the fork tubes, the seat becomes a single hump, and the tank grows long and flat to tuck behind. The riding position leans the body forward into the wind rather than sitting it upright, which is where the speed, and the look, comes from. Because almost any road bike can be converted this way, no two cafe racers are ever quite the same, which is part of the appeal.
Our cafe racer art collection draws that world in ink and blueprint styles, or upload a photo of yours and we will draw the actual bike. The scrambler is the cafe racer's dirt-loving cousin, if you want the other side of the same era.
Written by Craig Fearn, Throttlefolio.
Transmissions
Questions, answered
Can any motorcycle be turned into a cafe racer?+
In principle, yes - the conversion is about bars, seat and tank rather than a specific base bike, which is why cafe racers come from such a wide range of donor machines.
Why is it called a cafe racer?+
From the 1960s British trunk-road cafes where riders met between runs - racing informally from one cafe to the next gave the style its name.
From the journal